Resistance
by Art-Over-Matter
Summary: "You want to meet in person again, do you? I suppose we could arrange that. There are easier ways to do this, though, Mark." "Do what, exactly?" Mark asked in a low, calm growl. "…Settle our differences, I suppose?" "And what would your suggested method be?" "Just let me have your mind," Darkiplier said simply.
1. Chapter 1

The young British man sat at the mouth of the alleyway, his expression, his posture, the very atmosphere around him radiating with the dejection he felt.

All because he'd gotten drunk once. Well, he'd been drunk numerous times in his life, but never dangerously so. Never to the point that he would gamble his life away.

Until that night when he'd set himself up to lose everything.

He'd once been known as Yamimash, though Aaron Ash was his actual name. Yes…back when he was making YouTube videos every day and had an audience of nearly one million people, he was Yamimash.

Yami looked up as he heard the shouts of rowdy men approaching him. There were three shady-looking men deeper in the alleyway, and if Yami's eyes weren't deceiving him, two of them were holding knives, which glinted in the overcast afternoon light.

How could they have come from deeper in the alley? Wasn't it a dead end?

Yami wasn't going to stick around to find out. He stood hurriedly, grabbed his backpack—the only thing he ever carried around—and started to leave.

Before he could make it two steps, one of the men was somehow in front of him. Or wait, this must have been a different man. How could he have moved so quickly?

"Why the hurry, human?" the man said in an American accent as he brandished his knife and grinned.

Yami shook his head, speechless and bewildered, and tried to step backward. He jumped as someone grabbed his shoulder from behind, and he tried to pull away, but the man was much stronger than he was and kept him firmly in place. He was about to shout to see if anyone was in the area when he heard someone call to him.

"Aaron, run!"

The man behind him turned away to find the source of the voice, releasing Yami in the process. But fear and indecision rooted Yamimash in place and he found himself unable to move.

He heard one of the men cry out behind him. Half a second later, a star-shaped blade flew out from the alley and hit the man with the knife who'd been standing in front of him. Yami stood, horrified, as the blade sank into the man's chest and he fell to his knees. Yami was finally able to move just enough that he could step back and toward the building to his right, away from the conflict.

The man who'd had the blade in his chest was standing again and he pulled the star out of himself, hurling it clumsily back to its owner. Blood sprayed from the disc as it spun back toward the man who'd originally thrown it, but he was such a blur of graceful motion that it missed by a foot.

The conflict was over in a few seconds. Two of the shady men went down when their hooded attacker flipped one over his shoulder right into the other one. Both had stars in their chests less than a second later. The last—the man who'd already been hit—had a more stunning and confusing demise. Yami's savior ended up right behind the man, and for a split second, a turquoise-blue glow of—something—appeared between his palms before he looped the immaterial substance around the man's neck and pulled it right through. It had no physical effects on the victim, but he dropped like a stone afterward.

Yami realized he was shaking, but he was so terrified he made no attempt to calm himself down.

"You didn't run," the hooded man said in a voice that Yamimash only now realized was familiar.

"I—I couldn't" was all he managed.

The man took a few steps toward Yami, who, still on edge and worried by the blood that was splashed all across the man's knee-length leather trench coat, immediately recoiled.

The man stopped. "Oh, I'm sorry, I guess I should—" He pulled off his hood.

Yami's jaw almost dropped, even though he'd already placed the familiarity of the voice. "M—Markiplier? What in the name of god are you…doing?"

Mark smiled slightly. "It's a long story."

"But—but how could you have just…?"

"Brutally murdered three men?" Mark's smile turned grim. "They're not actually human. I've been hunting all of them down for almost a month now. I've probably killed a hundred of them."

Yami's confusion and fear was hardly decreasing, but he started to feel curious as well. "What do you mean they're not human?"

Mark quirked an eyebrow and knelt beside one of the bodies. He pulled out a knife and used it to tear open the man's chest, which caused Yami's stomach to churn. Without hesitation, Mark sank his hand into the body, feeling around for a moment before yanking out a glass-looking orb that fit perfectly into his palm. It and Mark's hand were now thoroughly soaked with blood, but as Yami watched, the dead body silently imploded into smoke, which dissipated into nonexistence.

Yami turned away as he heaved onto the cobblestone street.

"Sorry about that," Mark said sympathetically. "I've gotten used to it. I have to do this with every one of them—it's the only way to get rid of the body and make sure they don't respawn."

"Respawn?" Yami echoed, horrified.

Mark nodded. He set the glass orb down on the ground and raised his knife to smash it. For less than a second, Yami heard a high-pitched, whistling squeal before the end of the knife came down and the glass shattered.

"What was that?" he asked cautiously.

"The orb? It's their life sour—"

"No, the noise!"

Mark looked at him. "What noise?"

Yami squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head vigorously. This was insane. He was going insane.

Summoning what little strength he could manage in this situation, Yamimash opened his eyes again and glowered at Mark. "I don't know who you are or why you look so damn much like my friend, but you're not him and you're just fucking with me. I have no idea what I just saw, but I'm probably going insane and I don't need _you _here to make it worse." He turned away and started to leave.

"Yami, wait." He heard Mark come up to him from behind. "You don't really believe I'm not Mark, do you? Ask me something."

Yami dodged the attempt Mark made to put a hand on his shoulder. "I don't know. I don't know what to ask."

"Then trust me. I'm Mark Edward Fischbach. My birthday is June 28th and I have 6.7 million subscribers on YouTube. We've known each other for a long time, Yami. The first time we met was in an airport after about a year of doing videos together. We used to play G-Mod horror maps all the time before you left YouTube."

Yami hung his head. He figured he probably should believe this man who looked so much like Markiplier he couldn't have been anyone else, but he didn't want to think his friend was involved with whatever insanity was happening around him.

"Why _did _you leave YouTube, Yami?" Mark asked. "What happened?"

Yami sighed and turned around. "I'll tell you if you answer some of my questions first."

Mark shrugged. "Fine. But you're going to have to let me go take care of those bodies back there. I can't leave them like that."

Yami nodded and reluctantly followed Mark back to the alleyway. "What're you doing here in England, anyway?"

"Chasing all of these bastards," he replied as he crouched by one of the bodies. Yami turned away, though he could still hear the wet spurting sounds as Mark stuck his hand into the corpse's chest. Bile rose to Yami's throat and he was afraid he'd be sick again. Unfortunately, the silence stayed as Mark performed his work on the second body, so Yamimash could hear what was happening above the distant city noise.

There was a pause after Mark shattered the second orb. "Gruesome work, huh?" Mark asked from behind Yami.

Yami nodded and turned, stepping back to look at his American friend. Despite that the rest of the bodies had vanished, the blood that was still spattered across Mark's jacket—and even his face and glasses—was still in the process of turning to smoke. It lifted off of him ominously, but there was something about the way Mark looked right then that was surprisingly…attractive.

"Yami? Is there something wrong?"

Wait.

What the hell?

Yami shook his head a little too hard in response. "No, no, I'm fine. It's just creepy how the blood disappears like that."

"Well, I won't disagree."

Yami glanced at where the bodies had been. There was no sign of them now except two lone knives. "I guess I should have known they weren't human, given what one of them said. But it's still really fucking hard to believe."

Mark was silent for a moment, long enough that Yami looked to him to see what was wrong. Mark was frowning, looking at Yami with an unreadable expression.

"You heard one of them speak?"

Yami frowned. "Well—yes. He talked in an American accent."

"What did it say?"

"Erm, he asked, 'why the hurry, human?' like he wasn't one."

Mark shook his head. "But Yami, they don't talk. No one can understand them. All I've ever heard from them are noises that I never really thought were a language."

"But—but it was perfect English. Well, perfect American English." Yami turned away, frustrated. "Y'know what? I don't even care. I don't even know what the damn things are."

"Well, to be right honest, nor do I. Spirits, demons, or something we have no name for—I have no idea."

"How did you encounter them in the first place?"

Mark sighed. "We should go somewhere else. It isn't as though this is a secret—no one would believe our conversation they overhead it—but honestly, I've been looking for these three for a few hours now and I'd like to get back to my hotel."

"You have a hotel? How long have you been here?"

"Only since yesterday morning. You know, I do have some questions for you, too, Aaron. Like why you're not on YouTube anymore. Or why you're in the state you're in right now. In one of your last videos you hinted at having financial problems…?" Mark shook his head. "I'm getting ahead of myself. We'll talk in the car."

"How long is the walk to your car?"

Mark raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Not far at all. Gimme a couple seconds. But you might want to close your eyes or turn around."

"Why?"

Mark looked at him with complete sincerity and said, "Because if you see this, you're going to convince yourself you're insane."

Yami frowned and, deciding things were already too complicated for him to question, turned around.

He felt the air move behind him, even though the buildings were blocking the wind, and without thinking, he peered back over his shoulder.

What he saw was nothing he ever could have prepared for.

It was like something straight out of a movie. A huge…hole…in the air shimmered in front of Markiplier. A different part of the city showed through it, its image rippling as though waves of heat were rising from the edge of hole. A small gray car was parked by the curb shown in the floating image, and Mark made a small gesture with his arms, which seemed to pull the car through the portal and onto the street in front of them. The hole disappeared with a soft _whoosh_ of air.

Yami's legs suddenly felt weak. "What—what in the name of god is happening to me?" he said vaguely.

Mark turned to see him and glared. "Dammit, I told you not to watch. You've already seen enough."

Yamimash realized his mouth was slightly open, but his brain wasn't in a state to try to fix it. He took a few numb steps forward and set a hand on the hood of the car. It was completely solid. It really was there.

Without warning, darkness started to cloud Yami's vision and he began to pass out. Before he was completely dead to the world, before he had hit the pavement, he felt Mark's arms around him from behind.

Then everything disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

Mark noticed Yami come around about three or four minutes into the drive. Mark hadn't had any trouble getting Yamimash in the car and seatbelted and he knew he would come to before long, but that wasn't his concern. His real concern was that Yami had seen too much and would be affected for a long time afterward. If only he hadn't gotten involved….

"You all right there, Yami?" Mark asked when he saw the British man's eyes open.

Yami still seemed to be processing everything he remembered. Mark felt quite sorry for him; everything was being thrown at him at once, whereas Mark had gotten to understand things bit by bit. Well, mostly.

Yami sat up a little straighter in his seat and ran his hand through his thin bangs. "Yeah, I—I think I'm fine. I just—shit, I didn't pass out, did I?"

Mark smiled and nodded. "Yes, you did. It's okay, though; I don't blame you. If I were in your shoes, I'd probably faint too. This is a lot to take in; I understand that."

Yami blew out a sigh. "It's mad. I still don't even know if I believe anything right now."

"You're going to have to make up your mind eventually, Yamimash. I can't have you feeling indecisive if one of those things is about to take your head off." He slowed down to stop at a stop light. "I can promise you I've only told the truth so far. Everything you've seen is real." He looked at Yami. "I know that's probably terrifying, but it's true. Don't worry too much about one of the creatures attacking you; as long as we stick together, you'll be fine."

Yami kept eye contact with Mark for a few seconds, his dark eyes full of worry, before looking back through the windshield. "Light's green, Mark."

Mark turned away and pressed the gas.

"I—think I believe you, but I'll be right honest; it's not the monsters that are really bothering me right now. It's…what you did. The car, the weird blue light….What was that?"

Mark sighed, keeping his eyes on the road. "That's the part that is a little harder to explain. I just have these…abilities…and I don't really understand why I have them, but I can just do my best to use them well. I—well—I feel like an idiot to think of it this way, but it's pretty much magic."

"Good Lord. I had a feeling you'd say that."

"You can choose not to believe me, but you saw what I can do." He fought to keep his expression stable, since it wanted to express his dread and guilt over the memory of something far worse his magic could do….

"No, I believe you. I just don't understand how my life could be so fucked all of a sudden. Am I really not going mad?"

"You're not believing me if you still think you're crazy."

Yami sighed and sank down in his seat, putting his face in his hands. "I just…it's just…it's all so…hard to come to terms with."

"Take your time," Mark told him with a small pat to his shoulder. "We've got at least a few more hours until we need to worry about any more of those men coming back."

"A few hours?" Yami cried, yanking his hands away from his face to look at Mark. He groaned.

The rest of the drive to Mark's hotel passed more or less in silence. Mark suspected Yami still had a lot of questions, but he was taking the time to process what he already knew. Probably not a bad choice.

As Mark parked his rental car and started to lead Yami out of the parking garage, he decided it was about time to ask some questions himself.

"So Yami. You said you'd answer some of my questions if I answered yours. I know you probably still have a lot to ask, and I'll answer anything you ask, but for now I think it might be better for both of us to talk about something else."

Yami nodded and didn't say anything as they entered the elevator. Mark took that as a tentative invitation for him to continue.

"Just—what happened, man? You stopping doing anything on YouTube a few months ago. How did you end up here?"

"You mean on the streets with nowhere to go?" Yami asked dully.

Mark nodded hesitantly.

"I got drunk one time. I got drunk and then gambled. Got myself in debt in one night and never could pay it off." He shrugged. "I don't know how my life became shit so fast, but that's where I am now and I don't have much to do about it."

Mark was frowning deeply. Was there really much he could do for Yami at this point? "So you don't have a place to stay anymore?"

Yami shook his head.

"Well, you can stay in my hotel room for as long as I have it. We'll figure something out from there."

Yami's adorably hopeful expression made Mark reflect on how much he liked the young man. Not—not in _that _way, but…yes. As friends.


	3. Chapter 3

Half an hour after arriving at Mark's hotel, Yami and Mark sat together at the tiny dining table in the hotel room. During his much-needed shower, Yami had mentally prepared himself for the insanity that Mark was probably going to tell him within the next minutes.

"Where do you want to start?" Mark asked.

Yami blew out a long breath. "Honestly, I have no idea. How about this—when and why did you first start chasing these smoke monsters around?"

"Like I said, it was about a month ago. I was….God, I don't know how to explain this. That probably wasn't the best question to begin with."

"Should I try something else?" Yami offered.

Mark shook his head. He closed his eyes for a few seconds before flicking them open again and saying, "Something went wrong with some magic I was doing, and they were the result."

Yami was taken aback. "You mean you created them?"

Mark frowned at the surface of the table. "No. Not at all, really. But…indirectly, I caused them to be here."

"Are they coming from somewhere? Like a different dimension or something?"

Mark shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, they're just magic, like what I do. Where _that _comes from, I have no idea."

Yami's eyebrows were knitted in contemplation. "How long have you been able to do your…magic, if you want to call it that?"

Mark studied him for a moment before saying, "Would you believe me if I said my whole life?"

Yami sighed. "At this point, sure. I'd believe pigs can fly by now."

Mark smiled. "Not sure about that, but I wouldn't question it either. Anyway, yes, I've had this ability my whole life. I never had much to do with it, though, and honestly…." He trailed off and looked away toward the window. "Honestly, I never wanted to discover the extent of my power. I was right, too. Once I did…things started to go wrong."

"By which you mean, you created the smoke monsters."

Yami could tell Mark was holding something back when he said, "Yes."

Yami cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "Is there something you're not telling me about this?"

Mark sighed and pulled off his glasses to rub a hand across his face. "I'm telling you everything you need to know. I don't want to get into the stuff that not even _I _believe."

"What is it?" Yami demanded. He was hesitant to know what Mark could be referring to, but he couldn't help but be curious.

Mark, however, remained stubborn. He shook his head. "Just leave it, Yamimash. I'll tell you at some point, but I'd rather wait until you're used to all the other crazy shit I've told you."

"I guess I can't make you tell me," Yami said through an exhale. "So here's my next question. What now? Are you just going to hunt these things down left and right until you finally kill them all? And how did those three get all the way to the UK?"

"They didn't come from back in the United States. They appear wherever, usually three to five at a time. They happened to pick here this time. I'm just fortunate I can track them down and get rid of them, usually before they hurt anyone. I have a sort of connection with them, I guess, so I usually know where they are if I focus on it."

Yami was having a hard time understanding what Mark meant. He knew what he was saying, but he couldn't imagine how it actually worked. Just magically—literally magically—feeling where something else was? How was that even possible?

How was any of this possible, though? He had to remind himself that _nothing _made sense at this point, which made each individual thing seem less impossible.

"Is there a limit on how many of them there are?" Yami asked. "Or are you just going to be chasing them forever?"

Mark sighed. "They're going to keep coming until I get rid of the source."

Yami frowned. "Wait, but I thought that was you. What d'you mean?"

"Well, they come from something I did, not directly my magic…I don't think. It's not like I'd have to kill myself to get rid of them—don't think that—but I would have to get rid of the glitch in my magic."

"Does that take on a physical form? How do you get rid of it?"

"I—I don't really know the answer to either of those questions." Yami couldn't quite tell if he was lying or not.

There was a quiet pause between them.

"I…think I ran out of questions," Yami said.

Mark smiled. "A little faster than I expected, but good. I could really use a nap."

Yami glanced at the alarm clock across the room from them. "It's early afternoon, Mark."

"Yeah, and I've been awake since midnight last night. Besides, my inner clock is all messed up because of time zones."

Yami shrugged. "Well, you do that. I'll just hang around and try to convince myself I'm not crazy."

"I promise you're not," Mark said, but he didn't pursue the subject. He kicked off his shoes and sat on the crisp white bed. "Just don't let me sleep later than four, okay? I've got a video to upload."

Yami frowned, slightly incredulous. "But how are you going to manage that, Mark? One hour of sleep?"

Mark smiled and waved him off. "I'll figure it out—I've been longer without sleep." He let himself fall back onto one of the pillows. "By the way, have I ever mentioned how much I like the way you say my name? Not, uh, in a weird way, of course. It's just…not how I'm used to hearing it."

Yami didn't have a way to respond except with a self-conscious smile.

While Mark slept, Yami left the hotel room and wandered around the lower level of the building for some time. It was a decent hotel—nothing special, but certainly something that probably made for a pleasant stay—though there wasn't much he found to do at floor level. Fortunately, he wasn't really looking for entertainment—he had enough to think about.

He came back to Mark's room about forty-five minutes after leaving. It didn't take him long after getting back to the room to notice that Mark was no longer sleeping peacefully. He kept shifting positions, his breathing pattern no longer steady. He shook his head vaguely from time to time, frowning even through his sleep.

Yami approached the bed, figuring Mark was having a nightmare and it would be best to wake him up.

"Mark?" he said softly, putting a hand on the distressed man's shoulder.

Mark jumped to consciousness, and as his eyes flew open in surprise, Yami swore that, for a moment, his irises had been pitch black.

Mark had instinctively grabbed Yami's wrist, but once he looked up and saw Yami, the fear in his now-brown eyes rapidly disappearing, he let go.

He took a few breaths before saying, "Sorry."

"It's okay," Yami said, stepping back from the bed. "I guess I shouldn't have startled you like that."

Mark sat up, looking a little shaken.

"What happened?" Yami asked. "Bad dream, obviously."

Mark nodded. "Just—yeah. They happen."

Yami frowned. "But it wasn't anything strange? I just—I thought I saw…." He didn't finish.

"Saw what?" Mark asked with curiosity and slight worry, cocking his head.

Yami shook his head, knowing he'd sound crazy if he said what he thought he'd seen. He was, however, willing to point something else out. "When I first came in here, I thought I heard you mutter something about…Darkiplier."

Mark looked down at the bed sheets. He muttered a cussword under his breath before looking back up to Yami. "I should just tell you."

"Tell me what?" Yami asked insistently as Mark ran a hand through his hair and stood up off the bed.

"I…." Mark paused, then sat down on the bed again. "When I messed up with magic that one time….I—I never actually created the smoke spirits, but I summoned something else. Some_one _else. A version of myself, like my alter-ego." He glanced at Yami. "He…kind of happens to resemble the character my fans made up a few years ago."

Yami stared at him for a moment. "So the one who's creating all the smoke monsters is…Darkiplier?"

Mark nodded. "Goddamn, I don't like believing it. It seems ridiculous. But he is a version of myself, and I'll be damned if he doesn't look and act like I think the fans always imagined him. So whether or not he's _actually _Darkiplier—that is, whether or not he actually has anything to do with the fan-created character—I don't know. But that's how I've ended up thinking of him."

"So you've actually seen him? Where is he now?"

Mark's fingers were still busy combing through the front of his hair, in that absentminded way Yami noticed him doing whenever he was bothered by something. "Yes, I saw him when I first…summoned him. But I don't know where he is now. That's why I haven't figured out how to get rid of the smoke monsters or him."

"Can't you just ask one of them? Force them to tell you?"

"Yami, I can't talk to them. I've never heard them speak."

Yami's eyebrows knitted. "Right. I remember that now."

Mark's face had lit up, though, and suddenly he was standing with a hand on each of Yami's shoulders. "But you can talk to them, Yamimash! We have to find one! That's how I'm going to finish this."

Yami shook his head vigorously and stepped out of Mark's reach. "I'm not going to look for those things again. They're just fucking wrong and I don't want to be around them anymore."

"You'll be fine. I'll keep them from trying anything; I've been dealing with this for a while now." Mark's expression became somewhat pleading. "I need you to do this for me. This is the only way I've ever come up with to find and get rid of Darkiplier."

Yami was still hesitant. He trusted Mark; he just didn't want to have to go through seeing those damn things again. Them and their disturbing orbs in their chests.

He took a deep breath. "Alright, fine. I might—I'm willing to help. But I'm going to be useless if it comes to fighting. I don't know a damn thing about anything."

"That's fine, as long as neither of us do anything stupid. We just stick together."

"So it's deci—" Yami cut off when he heard noise in the hallway.

_"__So many humans here….It's hard to tell where he is."_

"Mark," Yami squeaked, looking to the door. "Mark, there're things out there."

Before Yami had finished his sentence, Mark flinched and put a hand around his forehead.

"Shit, he's hiding them from me," he said, more to himself than to Yamimash.

"Who's hiding what? Your alter ego is hiding the smoke monsters? What does that mean?"

Mark nodded vaguely at the second question but was on the move by the third. He went to the closet and dug through his leather jacket, pulling out a half-circle sheath of star blades from an inside pocket. The sheath clipped conveniently onto his belt and he kept his right hand over it, ready to pull one out at the slightly provocation, as he turned to Yami.

"Can you still hear them?"

Yami cocked his head slightly to listen. "No. I think they passed our door and kept going down the hallway."

Mark approached the door and was about to glance out of the peephole when a loud _thud _was struck out from the other side.

"I take that back," Yami said quickly, "they didn't leave."

"Thanks," Mark responded dryly. He stepped away from the door and leaned forward just enough to turn the knob before assuming what Yami guessed was a fight-ready stance. "Stay back and don't get cornered," Mark told him. "And just—pay attention to anything they say." He said this all very quickly, since by the time he was saying his second sentence, the man and woman from the other side of the door were shoving it all the way open and entering.

The woman had two blades in her chest before she'd taken a step. She staggered backward into the man, who paid her no mind. As he pushed her aside and started toward Mark, the woman pulled the stars out of herself and, with a snarl, hurled them into the wall. She didn't seem to feel the pain.

"Yami, I need you to close that door before we attract any attention here," Mark said with effort as he raised an arm to block a punch from the man, who was considerably larger than him.

Yami was about to protest, but decided against it. After all, Mark _was _doing all the work here, and they would be in trouble if anyone saw what was transpiring inside the hotel room.

He waited until the conflicted had shifted just out of the entranceway, and as soon as it did, he darted around the three and shut the door with a heavy slam.

The loud noise distracted the female smoke monster from fighting Mark, which might have been a good thing, since he was busy enough with the man. Except that she turned straight to Yamimash.

"Shit, n-no you don't," he stuttered, backing up against the door.

She kept getting closer, pausing only to pull out Mark's star blade from the wall and brandish it at Yami. She drew back to throw it just as another blade flew across the room and slashed the back of her neck. She stopped, seemingly stunned, and started to bring a hand to the wound. Yami took the opportunity to deliver a punch to her face. Her wounds had stacked up enough at that point that the punch was enough to drop her to the floor.

Yami looked up to Mark, who was nearly done with his fight and close to unscathed.

"Yami," Mark grunted as he caught the man around the legs with a rope-like apparition of magic and pulled him off his feet. "You're going to have to pull the orb out of her chest. The ones who look female always respawn really fast."

Yami's gaze slid back to the collapsed brunette on the floor, his expression horrified. He didn't protest, though, and instead picked up the blade the smoke monster had dropped. His hand was shaking as he held it over the body.

"Come on, Yami, it doesn't take much," Mark said, unable to help since he had to keep the man pinned but not dead.

"She—it just looks so human…" he said weakly.

"You know it's one of them, you saw the way she pulled those blades out of her chest. Besides, I can feel it. This wouldn't have happened this way if she weren't one of them."

Yami nodded but still found himself unable to slice open her chest.

The body started to twitch slightly, all the colors on the woman, including her clothing, starting to darken toward black.

Yami dug the blade into her chest and raked it down to make an opening. He closed his eyes tightly as he shoved his hand into the body, feeling the hot, thick blood slip around his hand. It didn't take much feeling around before he struck what could only be the orb; it was in front of the rib cage, surprisingly out of place, and cold, despite being surrounded in warm blood and organs.

He wrapped his hand around it and pulled it out, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter and trying to block out the disgusting sounds that accompanied the motion. He knelt on the vinyl floor, eyes closed, holding the orb, for a few seconds before Mark spoke.

"Find something to hit it with, or she'll still come back." His voice was a calm, steady distraction from Yami's repulsion.

Without hesitation, Yami raised the glass above his head and slammed it down on the floor. The high-pitched shriek he'd heard earlier split the air before the orb shattered. Yami felt a shard of the glass slide into his skin with a short stab of pain before it and the other pieces across the floor disappeared.

He was still shaken when Mark beckoned him over to where the smoke man was being held to the floor.

"You're going to have to tell me what he says," Mark told him. "We should get this done as soon as possible." He looked down at the snarling man. "Who sent you here? Who's creating you?"

The man didn't answer and Yami frowned, shaking his head. "I don't think he understands you. If you can't understand him, it wouldn't make sense for him to understand you." He glanced to the man's furious, utterly inhuman eyes and said with more calmness than he felt, "We have to know where you come from. Who created you?"

Mark stared at Yami. He seemed like he wanted to speak, but he didn't say anything as the creature spoke.

"He looks much like him," it said, jerking its head toward Mark, who, not understanding the gesture, recoiled slightly. "But his manner is different." This was all it said.

Yami spoke quietly to Mark. "He says his creator looks a lot like you, but acts different."

Mark frowned and nodded. "Ask him if he knows why he was made."

"Do you know why he created you and the others like you?" Yami asked. Now that he thought about it, he could feel and hear the difference between the two languages.

"He does not explain," the man hissed. "It does not matter—none of this matters. I am to tear you apart and destroy your soul."

Yami swallowed hard and relayed the first information to Mark.

"Fine. Ask him where Darkiplier is."

"Where is the man who created you? Is he near here?"

"He is never far from where we're made," he answered, giving no further details.

Yami paused and asked again, "So is he here? In this city, in this hotel, where? Do you know exactly where he is?"

The man glared at him. "Why should I tell you?"

"Because if you don't, Mark is going to slice your chest open?" Yami didn't mean for it to be a question, but somehow it turned out that way. He looked at Mark. "Be threatening."

Mark raised an eyebrow in surprise, but did as instructed, creating a web of crackling, sparking magic in his hand and holding it toward the man he still had pinned with his other arm and knee.

The smoke monster glanced expressionlessly at the magic and then back to Yami. "I do not know exactly where he is. But he should know," it said, gesturing as best it could to Mark.

Yami frowned. "He says you should know where he is, Mark."

Mark looked slightly sickened, as if he knew exactly what was meant by that and he didn't like it.

"What? You do know?"

Mark shook his head. "No, but I have a way to find out. I just really didn't want to use it. Did he not tell you anything else?"

"He said that Dark is never far from where he and the others are created."

"So he would be around here."

Yami nodded. "I think so."

Mark sighed. "That's enough. We're done here."

"What're we going to do with him?" Yami nodded toward the man.

"Same thing we have to do with all the others. Yami, go dig around in my leather jacket and find my knife. It'll be sheathed and it should be in one of the inside pockets."

Yami nodded, his stomach still not settled down from pulling the orb out of the woman. He didn't want to see this process _again. _But he found the knife nonetheless and brought it to Mark.

"They seem so human sometimes," he said, almost in protest, as Mark took the blade from him.

The raven-haired man nodded. "I know. It's not always—" He was cut off mid-sentence as the smoke monster yanked itself out of his grasp.

The creature, suddenly looking a lot less human in its feral fury, slammed its fist into Mark's jaw before lunging at Yami and knocking him onto his back. It wrapped its hands around his neck, pressing its thumbs into his throat and causing him to choke and gasp for air.

Yami heard someone growl from above him, and he wasn't sure if it was Mark or the creature, but a second later, it was off of him. Yami's vision tunneled briefly as he rolled onto his side, coughing and trying desperately to rid himself of the painful, scratchy feeling in his throat.

"Aaron? Are you okay?" He heard Mark's deep voice from above him and he rolled onto his back again to see him.

"Yeah, I'm—" Talking felt weird and made him cough, but he recovered and said, "I'm fine."

Mark helped him to his feet and somehow, the two of them were hugging. Yami wasn't sure who had initiated the gesture, but it didn't matter to him. He just took a quick moment to appreciate Mark's scent and his calming presence so close to him.


	4. Chapter 4

Mark didn't hold onto Yami very long before pulling away and turning back to the body on the floor. He didn't want to think about what he felt toward Yamimash right now. It was a confusing jumble of his actual feelings and the things he'd been telling himself for years and it was distraction from what he was trying to accomplish.

He took a deep breath and picked up his knife from the floor. Like every other time he had to do this, he sliced open the body before he could think too hard about what he was doing. After the orb within was smashed and the body had disintegrated into wisps of smoke drifting across the floor, Mark waited for the blood to disappear off his hands as he looked back to Yami.

"There's something I'm going to have to do to find my alternate self—Dark, that is. And honestly I'm not sure if it's more dangerous for me or you."

Yami's eyebrows knitted. "What d'you mean?"

Mark looked down at his right hand, watching the rest of the magical blood waft away as smoke. "I should be able to sense his presence and location just like I can with the smoke creatures. Except he's infinitely more complicated than they are. He can block me out. If I try to break the barriers he's putting up, I almost…enter his mind, and that's—really bad, to say the least. He's powerful in a way I can't compete with, and he seems fully capable of taking control of me, at least for a few moments. Honestly I have no idea how long it lasted last time."

Yami looked slightly terrified. "If he's just your alter ego, how can he be more powerful than you?"

Mark shook his head. "I don't know. You have to remember, Yami, I barely understand this more than you do."

"But you've done this—whatever it is—before. And you were basically _possessed _by him?" Yami's voice was starting to get quite high-pitched, as it often would if he was anxious, stressed, or excited.

Mark cringed a bit and nodded. "You could put it like that. Once I realized he was trying to keep me from finding him, I tried to get past his magical barriers. Needless to say, it didn't work the way I thought it would. Thank god no one was around when it happened. I don't like to think what could have happened if they were." He closed his eyes and shuddered at the memory of what it felt like to be in that state. The splitting pain in his head, the warping of his vision, the ache throughout his body, as if it wanted to be something else, and above all, the desire to kill….

He shook his head and opened his eyes. "I really don't want to do this, but we have to act soon, or Darkiplier's probably going to move again. I've got to end this now, or I might not get another chance as good as this."

Yami nodded, concern still lacing his expression. "What does it entail, exactly?"

"Physically? Hopefully a lot of me sitting doing seemingly nothing. If things go badly, I'll probably be trying to destroy something. If he starts to control me, I'll have a hard time casting him out. That's where the danger to you comes in." Mark went to sit on the stiff-cushioned chair in the corner. "I—I'm not sure exactly how this whole deal works, because I've only done it once and I told myself I'd never do it again. But you're going to have to be careful, Yami. I'll probably go into something like a trance. If there's any sign of me coming out of that state but _not _acting like myself—and trust me, it'll be obvious if that happens—try to wake me. I don't know if an external influence can actually snap me out of it, but you could try." He stared Yami down now, his expression deadly serious. "If that doesn't work immediately, you have to get out. Do _not _stick around if you can't bring me back to normal. I think I'll come around eventually, but I don't know how long that would take. If it comes to that, leave the hotel room and keep the door closed behind you."

Yami swallowed and nodded. "Mark, could this actually, like…hurt you?"

Mark contemplated this. Honestly, he'd never really thought of it before. "I don't think so. Well….Let's put it this way: Darkiplier probably doesn't have the power to hurt me from this distance. The only danger to me will be myself if I get possessed."

"And would you actually, for some reason, hurt yourself?"

Mark shrugged. "I don't know, Yami. I didn't before, so…probably not. Just—don't worry about it, okay? With any luck, Dark won't even get close to me."

The young British man still looked a bit worried, but he didn't say any more about it.

Mark settled himself comfortably in the chair, one arm on each side of it, and closed his eyes. "You ready, Yami?"

"Are you?"

Mark nodded. "I think so."

"Then…do whatever you need to."

Mark took a moment to calm his mind—this was where his mixed emotions about Yamimash were unhandy—before starting to channel his magic. There was no way to describe what it felt like, except perhaps like moving through a tunnel that led to numerous locations: anywhere magic was still floating around in the air, a tunnel showed him where it was. He could feel some in this room, naturally, from his threat spell earlier. As he continued to focus, he fell deeper into his own mind and the connection it had with his surroundings. He couldn't sense any smoke monsters around, which was a good thing. But there was a larger, more powerful presence nearby. He couldn't pinpoint the location, so he tried narrowing his focus even more….

Pain snapped through his head and down his spine, startling him and causing him to flinch. He regained concentration as soon as possible and almost immediately found Darkiplier's presence again…and his location.

_"__Back so soon, Mark?" _the voice, which sounded just like his own, purred into his head. _"We just had a discussion while you were asleep."_

Mark tried to pull away then, but Dark was keeping him there, willing him to stay focused on that tunnel like an invisible wall that wouldn't let him back up.

_"__Why do you want to find me? What are you really going to do?"_

_Let me go, I don't want to deal with you like this._

_"__You want to meet in person again then, do you? I suppose we could arrange that. There are easier ways to do this, though, Mark."_

_Do what, exactly? _Mark mentally asked in a low, calm growl.

_"…__Settle our differences, I suppose?"_

_And what would your suggested method be?_

_"__Just let me have your mind," _Darkiplier said simply.

Mark tried to pull away again, but he was too late. Dark's presence was coursing through his mind, that dull ache spreading through his body from top to bottom. He suddenly lost awareness of what was around him—he could no longer feel the chair beneath him or the temperature of the room he was in. A buzzing noise invaded his hearing and a new pain, sharper than the other, struck his head. He heard someone cry out and he opened his eyes at the same time he realized it had been himself.

His vision was clouded at the edges and everything was out of focus except anything at the center of his range of sight. He felt something touch his shoulder and he immediately shoved it away from him, standing up and stepping back away from it. He heard an accented voice protest, "Mark! Mark, it's just me."

Wait….

Mark shook his head vigorously and looked to the source of the voice, but his vision was becoming so warped he could hardly make anything out.

"Yami…." It was the most he could manage before his memory of what that name even meant was erased.

An acute smell hit his nose; it was the scent of blood. It was both inside and outside of the person in the room with him. He wanted to spill that blood, whoever's it was. He wanted to see it on the ground, or shining on the blade of a knife….

Without making a conscious decision, he created a blade out of magic and gripped it in the palm of his hand. It had no hilt, but the bite of the blade into his skin was dull, forgettable.

"Mark, no. Don't use that. Come back to me, please Mark…."

The voice meant nothing. Its only purpose was to give him a way to find its owner despite the dark blurriness of his vision.

He unconsciously took on a fighting stance and slashed at the man in front of him. He must have missed, though, because he could smell that no more blood was leaving the man's body.

He stepped closer to where he knew his target must have been and tried another attack with the knife. A moment later, his wrists were caught in someone's grasp. He almost pulled away when the accented voice spoke again.

"Mark Fischbach. Snap out of it. You don't want to hurt me."

_Fischbach. _

Mark froze, and for a second his senses slammed back full-force. He saw Yamimash's face and felt the sting in his right hand.

"Yami…." His vision was already clouding again, the pain striking his head, and he panicked. "Yami, you have to leave. Get out, leave, now! Please…."

"Mark, no. You can pull out of it. You're almost there, just try."

"I don't—want—to hurt—you." Mark was truly struggling now, fighting Darkiplier with everything he had.

And suddenly, Dark's will was released. Whether Mark rid himself of it or Dark stopped trying to control him, he didn't know.

With a shudder, he fell to his knees. Yami let him go and the blade Mark had been holding dropped to the floor, disappearing in a brief flicker of blue light.

They stayed like this in silence for a few seconds, Yami standing rigidly in front of Mark, who could feel his chest heaving with his labored breathing.

"Mark?" Yami said so quietly it was almost a whisper. He slowly knelt in front of Mark, trying to see his face.

He didn't look at him. "I'm sorry. Jesus, I'm so sorry, Aaron."

Yami shifted slightly as though to hide something. "It's fine, Mark. It's okay."

Mark slowly lowered himself into a sitting position, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, trying to calm down.

He felt Yami's hand brush his forehead and he realized Yami was moving aside the lock of hair that commonly fell in Mark's face. Mark looked up at him, slightly surprised, before catching Yami's hand as it tried to rest back by his side. He saw the streak of blood from a cut on Yami's wrist and knew it must have been from when the two had been locked in a stalemate right before Mark had returned to his normal state of mind.

"Did I—"

"No. I'm fine. Don't beat yourself up about it."

"Dammit, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you, you should have left when—"

"Mark, shut up, please. I can take this for you, okay? I'm fine. Let's move on."

He let go of Yami's arm and sighed. "You're right. I found Darkiplier's location and I don't think he's going to leave just yet. I should go to him." He stood and Yami followed suit. "Yami, you don't have to come. You're probably better off just staying here and waiting for me to come back."

"Mark, don't underestimate me. I'm coming. I might not be of much use, but if you somehow need me, I'll be there."

"I'm not trying to underestimate you. I have no idea what to expect from this encounter and it's probably going to be pretty dangerous. I think we both just had a demonstration of how powerful Dark actually is."

Yami raised his eyebrows. "Which is why you shouldn't go alone."

Mark put his hands up in surrender and couldn't keep a small smile from creeping onto his face. "Okay. You have a point. We should go then."

"What're we going to do about these?" Yami asked, nodding toward his own two cuts—one from the glass of the smoke monster's life source—and Mark's.

Mark raised his right hand, where most of the blood was spread across his palm, accenting the lines in his hand.

"We'll come up with something."


	5. Chapter 5

After the two gave themselves impromptu care to their minor wounds, Yami finally began to ask about what Mark had learned during his magical trance.

"So where is Darkiplier? Does he know we're coming?"

"He's not far from here—I don't know the name of the building, but I can get us there." Mark paused, seemingly considering the second question. "He knows I want to find him, so yes, he'll probably expect me. He doesn't know about you."

"How do you know all of this? You can just…feel it?"

Mark shook his head as he pulled his leather jacket out of the closet and put it on. "We can communicate mentally. He spoke to me then just as he did earlier when I was asleep."

"Is that what was going on then?" Yami asked with a frown.

Mark nodded. He reached into a front pocket on his suitcase and pulled out a knife, handing it to Yami.

He took it numbly. "I—can't use this, Mark. What am I supposed to do with it?" It wasn't as though Yami _really _didn't know what to do with it, and it wasn't as though he'd never used an army knife before, but with the stinging of the cut on his wrist still reminding him what it felt like to be slashed with a blade, he couldn't imagine himself actually using it on anyone.

"Hopefully you won't have to do anything with it," Mark said, unperturbed. "But just in case, you should keep it. I have another one and all my star blades—I won't need it."

Yami reluctantly nodded and pocketed the knife.

"Now, let's go, shall we?" Mark asked.

"How long's it going to take to get there?"

Mark seemed unable to keep a slight grin off his face. "We're not driving."

This news made Yami feel simultaneously excited and sickened. "How…are we getting there then?"

Mark slipped his remaining star blades—there were about eight of them—into his long jacket and said, "With a portal." With that, he made a circle motion in the air with his arms and closed his eyes in concentration.

Yami watched as the air within that circle rippled and faded out, revealing an image inside. It was the interior of an old stone building whose ceiling was partially collapsed, letting the afternoon light in from outside. Yami could feel the cool air from the other side of the portal, though that hardly helped him come to terms with the fact that this wasn't just an image; it was actually a different place.

Mark looked over his shoulder at Yami. "Before we go, I would like to ask, are you okay? With all this, I mean. Do you still think you're crazy?"

Yami shook his head and smiled. "No, I think you're crazy."

Mark smiled and raised an eyebrow. "I might be." He gestured for Yami to go through the portal. "I can't go in first, or it'll just close behind me. You'll have to go first. Just don't let yourself touch the edges of the portal; it won't feel great. These things put off a lot of energy and heat."

Yami nodded, his eyebrows knitting slightly, and hesitantly ducked through the portal. He could feel the heat from the edges of the portal, but it was made less severe by the breeze on the other side. He was expecting to feel…_something_ as he passed through, but the only thing he noticed was the difference in temperatures.

He turned to see the hotel room from this side, but was startled to find nothing there. Immediately, he started to panic. Had Mark accidentally closed the portal? Was something wrong?

Then Mark appeared, stepping over the edge of the invisible portal and coming out of thin air.

"You—you can't see the portals from this side?" Yami asked.

Mark shook his head. "No, of course not. Why do you think I was willing to make that portal in the middle of the city earlier?"

Yami frowned. It made sense, but that was the last thing on his mind now. "Why don't you get around like this more often?" he asked while scanning their surroundings for any sign of danger. So far, it had been almost silent in the dilapidated building, except the distant city noises from over the walls.

"It's extremely tiring to keep those portals open. I'm willing to do it now because I don't want to waste time, but honestly, conjuring them feels like shit." Mark, too, was looking around the building, slightly tensed as though in expectation of something jumping out at them.

Yami frowned. "Was Dark supposed to be here?"

Mark nodded. "Somewhere near here, anyway. I suspect…he knows we're here. Just…be on guard." He started to cross the room to a dark hole in the floor that must have been a staircase and Yami realized they were on the second floor of the building.

"Mark," Yami said quietly, cocking his head. "There are smoke monsters here. I can't see them, but I hear them."

Mark stopped and turned back. Yami saw his hand slip inside his jacket, prepared to pull out a weapon in an instant. "Fuck. Usually I'm able to sense them at this proximity. Where's the sound coming from?"

Yami frowned and shook his head, trying to pick it out but failing. "It's…all around us."

Mark looked genuinely concerned at that. "How many voices do you hear?"

Yami closed his eyes.

_"…__here, of course."_

_"__Do we have to…?"_

_"__One of them isn't like…."_

_"…__ambushed at any minute."_

"I—there are lots of them, I don't know. They're saying something about an ambush."

Mark's eyebrows knitted and he glanced around. "Yami, stay close to me."

Yamimash stepped over to his friend as Mark suddenly tensed and looked up. Yami followed his gaze to the gray sky, where a winged figure was descending toward the roofless building.

Yami swallowed hard. "Is…that…?"

"Did I not mention he has wings?" Mark asked nonchalantly, not taking his eyes off the sky.

"No, you didn't," Yami said irritably.

The figure dropped into the building and landed rapidly but gracefully ten feet or so from Mark.

Yami stepped back immediately when he saw the man raise his head.

Yami had been trying to expect it, but he couldn't help but be alarmed by the striking similarities Darkiplier had to Mark. The raven hair was the same—though arguably Mark's wasn't actually black, whereas Dark's most certainly was—all his features were the same and he was the same height as Mark. But there was something distinctly inhuman about him. Maybe it was the giant, dark gray, birdlike wings on his back, or the pitch blackness of his irises, or the unnaturally pale hue of his skin. Perhaps it was the eerie smile revealing almost vampire-like canine teeth.

Or it was all of the above.


	6. Chapter 6

"So you did decide to show up," Dark said smoothly with a less than pleasant smile.

There was something distinctly disturbing for Mark about watching a man who looked so much like himself do things he would never do. His hand closed around his knife in his pocket, but right then, he couldn't imagine actually using it.

"This has to end somehow, Dark. And it won't do so with you taking control of me."

Darkiplier raised his soot-black eyebrows and chuckled. "Is that what you call me? Fitting, I suppose," he smirked, stretching one of his wings out in front of himself and examining it with a cocked eyebrow.

Mark ignored this comment. "Why do you keep creating these smoke creatures?"

Dark's wing lazily swung back to rest in its natural position. "Why shouldn't I? I enjoy destruction. Why do _you _keep killing them all?"

"Because they could hurt someone, and unlike you, I do not want that. If I could trust you not to create any more, this might not end badly."

Dark grinned. "You can't trust me with anything. Well, I wouldn't trust me, anyway. But I don't trust anyone, so what's it matter?"

Mark was trying to think of anything he could do—other than resort to killing—to get rid of Darkiplier, but given that he didn't fully understand how Dark had come to be, he was having a hell of time imagining how to make him come _not _to be.

"Mark," Yami said quietly from behind Mark.

"What?"

"There're almost a dozen of them. I see them now."

Startled, Mark cast a quick glance over his shoulder to find eight smoke monsters, each of them only partially human, making a half circle around him and Yami. They were a strange mix of human bodies and smoke, certain parts of them alternating from one form to the other.

The other two smoke monsters were lurking behind Dark in the shadows of the boards that made up the remainder of the ceiling.

"Just keep an eye on them," Mark said softly, then turned back to his alter ego. He started in surprise when he found that Dark had silently moved a few feet closer.

Dark had his eyes locked onto Yami, which made Mark take a stiff, protective step closer to the British man.

"Yamimash," Dark said slowly, his onyx eyes flicking back and forth between Yami and Mark. "Why do you choose to accompany him? You're of no use to him."

Mark felt almost as taken aback as Yami looked that Dark had known Yami's name. Did he know everything Mark did?

Yami recovered quickly. "Shut the fuck up, would you? I can be here if I damn well want to."

Dark raised his eyebrows and momentarily lost his menacing leer. Then a smile crept onto his face. "I like him, Mark," he purred. Mark snarled slightly and took on a fighting stance. He wasn't going to put up with this for long, he already knew.

"But unfortunately," Dark said, reaching forward with his wing to brush his feathers across Mark's cheek, which caused Mark to recoil, "so do you."

Mark heard Yami suddenly tense and let out a small sound of pain. Mark whipped around to find him doubled over, clutching his right hand to himself.

"Yami?" Mark asked, trying to contain his worry as he put a hand on Yami's shoulder.

"Shit," Yami managed, "I—it's coming from this cut, but—goddamn—it's everywhere, too."

Mark assumed he was referring to the pain, but that still gave him no indication of what was actually happening.

Until Darkiplier spoke. "Of course," he said as though in answer to Yamimash. "You got cut by the glass from one of their life forces." He nodded toward the smoke monsters. "That magic is inside your blood, and I have control over it."

The pain seemed to hit Yami harder and he cried out. He shook his head as though about to say something, but he couldn't manage it.

Mark glared and stepped up to Dark, finally confrontational. "Stop it," he growled. "I could put a blade in your chest faster than you could say 'shit.'"

Dark just grinned and chuckled. "I would love to see you—" He cut off with a sharp intake of breath when Mark sank his knife into Dark's abdomen. Mark could tell he genuinely had caught the other off guard just by his startled, pained expression.

Mark flinched as he started to feel an odd sensation in his stomach, then nearly doubled over when a sudden wave of agony washed over him and he felt blood start to soak through his shirt. Shocked, he looked down to find what must have been a knife wound on his left side, though nothing seemed to have created it.

It was the exact same wound he had just inflicted upon Darkiplier.

Dark had already figured out what this meant. "You can't hurt me," he said with a labored smile. "Not without causing yourself the same pain. Let's find out if it works the other way, shall we?"

Mark immediately started to backpedal, but with the restricting wound on his side, he couldn't move fast enough. Dark conjured a piece of magic that acted as a blade, slashing across Mark's shoulder before vanishing.

Mark cringed and brought his hand up to cover the wound, waiting tensely for the same cut to appear on Darkiplier.

It didn't.

Dark's expression of cruel delight was disgusting for Mark to see on what was almost his own face.


	7. Chapter 7

The pain had dissipated from Yami's body as soon as Dark had gotten stabbed in the gut. Whatever he had been doing to cause Yami pain had obviously required concentration, because as soon as Mark distracted him, Yami had relief. He was bent over with his hands on his knees, but he straightened when he heard movement behind him.

The smoke monsters were closing in. Yami wasn't certain why they hadn't attacked yet, but he hardly cared. All he hoped for was that they wouldn't decide to now.

Yami took his eyes off the warped humanoid creatures long enough to assess what was happening between Mark and his demonic duplicate. He heard Dark finish whatever he had been saying, "…without causing yourself the same pain. Let's find out if it works the other way, shall we?"

Yami wasn't even entirely sure what happened, it had happened so fast, but a second later, Mark had a wound on his shoulder. Yami noticed immediately that Mark and Darkiplier both had matching wounds, both bloodied gashes on the right side of their stomachs. Dark's wound was oozing pure black blood, whereas Mark's was, of course, dark red. Suddenly, what Dark had just said made sense: the two were connected. Mark couldn't hurt his evil twin without hurting himself, but it didn't work the other way around….

Fear pulsed through Yamimash. Was this completely hopeless? If there was no way to kill Dark without doing the same to Mark, what point was there to this?

Something grabbed Yami from behind and he pulled away out of reflex and panic, turning and backing away from his attacker. One of the smoke monsters had gotten restless without orders from Dark and was circling him now.

Yami pulled the knife Mark had given him out of his pocket and slid it out of its sheath. He was by no means ready to fight, but he could try to survive, at least.

The creature lunged for him and he dove out of the way, slashing its chest as he went, more accidently than anything else. It was on top of his back before he could stand, but it weighed almost nothing since sixty percent of it was smoke. He threw it off himself and stood up as quickly as possible before it could return.

He was hoping it would be discouraged by the pain of the slash he'd given it, but these things hardly seemed to feel pain, so it came back at him. Since it had no weapon, it tried to deliver a punch, but he ducked and thrust the knife hilt-deep into its chest. His stomach turned violently as he felt the blood rush over his hands. The creature was stopped, and Yami knew he'd have to pull out its life source or it would respawn, but he hated the process….

Yami pulled his knife out of the body and let it collapse to the stone ground. He extracted and crushed the magical orb—careful not to allow himself to be cut by the glass again—and looked back at Mark and Darkiplier. The latter had Mark cornered and was stalking closer, growling something Yami couldn't make out from this distance.

Looking at the situation from afar, Yami suddenly knew exactly what to do.


	8. Chapter 8

Mark was able to hold off Dark for some time just by creating temporary magical shields or the like, but Dark was faster, stronger, and of course had the huge advantage of not getting hurt whenever he did something to Mark.

Mark kept blocking and parrying Dark's attacks until he failed to see his opponent's wing swing around toward him, and in an instant, he was thrown across the floor, sprawled on his side.

A stab of pain ran through him, emanating from his wound. He bit back the temptation to cry out and had just started to rise when Darkiplier was already back, driving his foot into Mark's stomach. Pain consumed him again and his vision went dark as he came near passing out.

"Resist me," Dark hissed, his wings flapping angrily, stirring up dust from the ground.

Mark stood up—and to his surprise, Dark allowed him to—as he clutched his knife wound. "Why?" he asked breathlessly. "Why is that what you want?"

The demon's wings settled, tucking back behind him. "That's what I've wanted the whole time."

"Is it just that you love chaos?" Mark demanded. He was only asking these things for two reasons; one, to stall for time so that everything would work in his favor, and two, just in case Dark would actually answer and help him figure out how to get rid of his evil duplicate.

"The more you resist, the further we are separated from each other. Enough and we'll no longer be connected. _That _is what I want, and one way or another, I will get it." He grabbed Mark around the neck with his left hand and shoved Mark's back against the wall, putting just enough pressure on his throat to keep him choking but not completely cut off his air flow. At the same time, Dark looked to his right as though to find Yami, probably intending to cause him pain again in order to piss Mark off, but the British man wasn't there.

Dark gasped in pain as Yami's knife dug into his right wing, his grip on Mark all but disappearing. Mark took the opportunity to deliver an uppercut punch to Dark's wound, which got the demon to completely let go of him and back away, his face contorted with agony.

Mark, unable to look at Darkiplier while he was in such pain, looked to Yami.

"He has something you don't," Yami said simply, looking shaken.

Mark nodded, not speaking yet through the pain in his throat, not to mention the pain in the rest of him. He glanced down at his left hand, which was covered in both his own blood and Dark's black blood, then over at Dark himself. The man who looked so much like Markiplier was still taking time to recover, with his hands pressed against his knife wound and his right wing resting more loosely from him than his left.

Mark looked back to Yami. "Thank you, Yami."

"It just—it was the only thing I could do," he said with a shrug. "It seemed obvi—" He cut off, flinching and clutching his right hand again.

Mark immediately turned and shot a bolt of magic at Dark that spread out and sped forward as a solid, invisible force, slamming into the winged demon and throwing him back against the wall.

"Mark," Yami said suddenly in a warning tone, seemingly pain-free now. His eyes were fixed on something behind Mark, and Mark turned immediately to see what it was. The two smoke monsters that had been on this end of the room were ready to attack now, and the one nearest him had a knife.

Mark whipped out a star blade and sent it into the creature's head with a flick of his wrist, but as soon as he did, the other nine or eight or however many there were came rushing in all at once.

Yami, to his credit, didn't panic, but he was certainly scared and he seemed to know there was nothing for them to do now.

For a single second—less than a second, even—Mark was completely calm, and he realized there _was _something for him to do. He'd just never known he could do it.

He closed his eyes and felt magic radiate outward from him, forming an immaterial, bubble-like shield around him and Yami. The smoke monsters were stopped by it instantly, each one disappearing into smoke as soon as it hit the shield.

"Yami, give me your hand," Mark said, his eyes open again.

"Wha—why?" Yami asked, frowning. He didn't seem untrusting as much as confused.

"I'm going to try something," Mark answered, taking Yami's hand in his own as the British man held it out to him.

He concentrated on feeling where his magic was, the same way he would sense for smoke creatures or Darkiplier, and could tell there was some lingering in Yami's palm.

His magic.

It was all his magic, he realized. Darkiplier, the smoke monsters…all of it was his—that was why he could sense where they were.

With a small gesture, he extracted the magic from Yamimash and let go of his hand. He looked up at Yami, who still seemed somewhat bewildered—partly at the magical shield that still shimmered around them, succeeding in keeping out Dark as well as the remaining few smoke monsters who hadn't disappeared, and partly at what Mark had just done.

"That magic is out of your body," Mark informed him.

"You just...willed it to leave?"

Mark nodded. "I could have all along, but I never realized it. I'll get back to this, Yami. I have something to finish."

He left Yami alone and walked over to where Darkiplier was lurking outside the shield. Mark stepped outside the shield with only a small hesitation.

"I had been under the impression you were more powerful than I was," he said to Dark, who snarled at his words.

"I could be," he hissed. "You've never bothered fighting me enough to find out."

"That's true," Mark said calmly. "But I know you're not. The reason I didn't fight you is because I thought I couldn't. I thought your strength was superior, but that's impossible. You're not my creation, or something I summoned—something separate from me. You are a _part _of me, Darkiplier, which is exactly what you don't want to be."

Mark saw fear cross Dark's pitch-black eyes, which distracted Mark just enough that he missed the spell his demonic other half sent at his thigh. The magic bit into him like a burn and with a sharp intake of breath, Mark shifted his weight to his other side. He forced himself to cast the pain aside as he continued talking.

"You want to no longer be connected to me, don't you?" he asked while discreetly slipping a hand into his pocket and casting a spell on one of his star blades.

Dark just narrowed his eyes, but Mark figured that was a yes.

"You can't. It's impossible, Dark." Before he'd even finished his sentence, he pulled out his star and hurled it into Dark's left wing. The blade cut straight through and dug into the stone wall behind Dark, pinning him to it. He let out a shout of pain and pulled his other, already wounded wing around himself as if it would protect him.

Mark stepped up to him and gingerly brushed Dark's right wing aside so that he could pull out the blade stuck in his left. Dark tensed, but couldn't resist anything at this point. As soon as the weapon had left his wing, Dark slid to the ground, his eyes closed to shut out the pain.

Mark let the blade, covered in midnight blood and stormy feathers, drop to the ground with a _cling_ as Dark looked up at him, asking tightly, "If you're supposed to be the good one, why are you willing to do this?"

Mark might have smiled, but couldn't with the pain in his duplicate's eyes staring him in the face. "It's all self-detriment, my friend." He held his hand out to help Dark up. Dark narrowed his eyes at the gesture at first, but Mark persisted, and finally, in resignation, he took it.

In the physical contact they had for just a few seconds, Mark took everything that made up Darkiplier and returned it to where it belonged: inside himself.

It felt like a rush of blood to the head, and for a moment, the pain he had felt earlier that same day, when Dark had been possessing him, spread through his body. His vision blurred, and his hearing faded out.

Then everything came back to normal, and it was as though the man called Darkiplier had never existed.


	9. Chapter 9

"Mark," Yami said after Darkiplier and the smoke monsters disappeared into thin air and the shield around Yami collapsed. "What did you do?"

Mark took a deep breath and turned to Yami. His signature strand of hair was hanging over his forehead again, above dark chocolate eyes that were trying to fight off the pain from his accumulation of wounds. "He was always a part of me. All I had to do was take the magic that made him up and…absorb it, basically."

"He's literally just…a part of you? You're harboring that inside your head?"

Mark nodded tiredly and Yami decided not to ask more about it.

He walked up to Mark and examined him up and down. "You look terrible, Mark."

Mark smiled slightly and Yami couldn't help but wonder if it was about his accent and the way he said Mark's name. "I'm okay. I'll just—need to find my way to a hospital before long." He tried to shift his weight slightly onto his left leg, but he only gasped and tried to get off it as soon as possible.

"Oh, Lord, dude," Yami said, brushing Mark's coat aside to look at the burn on his thigh. Yami didn't know much about medical anything, but it looked second or third degree to him. It stretched from about halfway up his thigh down about to his knee, the bloodied skin showing through the charred remains of his pant leg.

"I'm okay, Yami, I promise," Mark said, pulling his leather trench coat back over the top half of the wound.

Yami straightened and put his arms around Mark in a gentle hug, careful not to make contact with any of Mark's wounds. When he backed away, trying not to worry over how pale his friend looked, he looped Mark's left arm around his shoulders to give him something to lean on.

"How're we planning to get out of here? Another portal?"

Mark shook his head. "I probably couldn't make one if I tried, I'm so exhausted. No, we should probably call a hospital and get them to take us out of here. You have a phone?"

Yami nodded. "Yeah. I'll call as soon as we get downstairs."

There was a quiet pause between them as Yami helped Mark down the stairs to the lower level of the old, church-like building. The sun was setting, visible beneath the clouds that had covered the sky all day. It cast orange light through the broken windows, making warm figures across the cold taupe floors.

"Mark, if you caused Darkiplier to become a physical being once, could you ever do it again?" Yami couldn't help but ask.

Mark considered for a moment. "Yes, I would think so. I don't know how, or why I would want to, but I probably could."

Yami frowned and nodded, ducking out from Mark's arm as he let him lean against the archway exiting the building. "Exactly how powerful are you?" he asked, pulling out his phone to dial 999.

Mark raised his eyebrows with a faint smile. "I've said before; I have no idea. And I'm not really sure I want to find out."


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: This is the last chapter! I hope everyone who read this enjoyed it-I know I had a ton of fun writing it. I will probably-maybe-be writing more Markiplier fanfiction in the future, but we'll have to wait and see. Anyway, thanks to everyone who favorite/followed this story and an even bigger thanks to everyone who left a review. I always love reading what you have to say. So I'll stop typing and leave you alone now. This last chapter is dedicated to the Markimash fans. :P**

Six weeks later, Mark and Yami found themselves together at the London Heathrow Airport, minutes away from saying goodbye.

Yami had found somewhere to stay for the time being and had plans for how to set his life back in order. He said he hoped to be back on YouTube within the next six to ten months. Mark was happy to hear this and told Yami he'd help with anything he could, if necessary.

But Mark's home was not the United Kingdom; it was Los Angeles, and he had to go back to his house and computer and video game career.

"Mark, this has been by far the most insane month I've ever had," Yami said, taking his eyes off the hundreds of people rushing through the UK's busiest airport to look at Mark. "More than a month, I guess."

Mark nodded. "I'm in the same boat. Last month, actually….Jeez. A lot happened last month. It's going to be hard to go back to my life in LA as if nothing happened."

Yami yawned and leaned his head on Mark's shoulder. As was often the case, Mark knew, he was low on sleep. "I'll miss you with you going back to America and all."

The two of them had drawn much closer in the past weeks, closer than they'd ever been, and in a different way than they'd ever thought. Mark still didn't know how to feel about it, but he wasn't resisting what was happening between them.

Mark checked his watch. "Since my baggage is checked and everything, I'd better get going. I know I've got time, but god knows this airport is busy."

Yamimash nodded and sat up straight. "Okay." He sounded a bit forlorn. "The next time I see you, is there going to be any magic or badass knife skills involved?"

Mark chuckled. "Not to my knowledge, but hey, you never know. We'll just have to find out." He stood up and Yami followed suit.

"Thanks for letting me be the only person—ever?—to know about what you can do," Yami said sincerely.

Mark shrugged. "Yeah, I'm just sorry you had to go through that shit with Darkiplier and whatnot."

"I'm fine. It's all good."

Mark gave Yami a hug, and when they parted, he said, "See you in a few months, Aaron."

Yami looked back and forth between Mark's eyes for a second, his eyebrows slowly knitting, then leaned forward and kissed him.

Mark was taken by surprise at first, but he quickly fell into it, wrapping his arms around Yami and pulling him against himself. They were anywhere but in a private place, but Mark decided he didn't really care.

It didn't last terribly long before Mark pulled away first, knowing he had to get on his way to his flight or he'd risk being late.

"Thanks," Mark said quietly to Yami before stepping away and picking up his carry-on bag.

Yami frowned and cocked his head. "For what?"

"You figure that out," Mark smiled.

He walked away then, turning back to give Yami a quick wave before letting himself disappear into the crowd of people that would lead him back to America. Back home.


End file.
